


Pie for Dad

by Randomcat1832



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Baking, Canon Compliant, Dreemurr kids, Found Family, Gen, Historical Aesthetic, I love these idiot dead kids, Look I just really like historical Chara and Toriel has a wood stove but that's basically it, Nonbinary Chara (Undertale), Pre-Canon, Pretend Violence, Self-Hatred, Sibling shenannigans, This was edited in a rush and I am sorry, Undertale 5th anniversary, Undertale Anniversary, happy birthday undertale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26485069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randomcat1832/pseuds/Randomcat1832
Summary: Chara and Asriel only wanted to surprise their father with his favourite pie for his birthday. And if that means they have to rely on some interpretative skills with the recipe, so be it. It doesn't bode well, then, when the butterscotch filling (made with flowers) doesn't come out exactly as Chara had been hoping. But maybe the pie being perfect isn't the only thing that matters.Written barely in time for Undertale's fifth anniversary, have a taste of these kids being a little happy for a change.
Relationships: Chara & Asgore Dreemurr & Asriel Dreemurr & Toriel, Chara & Asriel Dreemurr
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Pie for Dad

**Author's Note:**

> Took me five years but look, I finally managed to get something out in time for Undertale’s anniversary. God, so many years later and this game never stops being incredible.
> 
> If you try really, really hard, you can pretend this one is purely fluffy and nothing bad happens afterward. Or, I just want the Dreemurr kids to be happy but it’s hard to detach them from their ultimate fate. Call it a compromise.
> 
> This story contains **self-loathing** and a brief instance of what could pass for **self-harm**.

They’d been hoping to do it for two years now. Asriel’s idea, obviously. But Mamma had been “concerned,” because she was always concerned, fretting about how the oven was dangerous and Asriel barely had any control over his fire magic. Two years of wheedling and begging—mostly Asriel, obviously, but Chara still put in an effort—until finally Mamma agreed to let them bake something for Papa’s birthday all by themselves.

Chara took initiative as soon as they were alone in the kitchen. “Cake is traditional, of course,” they said, cracking open Mamma’s old leather bound cookbook. “But cake is a dreadfully dull dessert, and pie is more suited to our family anyhow.”

“ _I_ like cake,” Asriel protested.

They looked at him directly in the eye. “Cake is nothing but a mass of bland, vaguely sweet fluff with a mound of sugary goo on top. Aesthetically pleasing, but hardly satisfying even for a moderately refined palette. Anyway, which do you prefer? Cake or pie?”

“Golly, you talk so weird, Chara.”

“So you keep pointing out. Now answer the question.”

Asriel scratched the back of his head. “I mean, pie I _guess_.”

Chara nodded once, satisfied. “There we are, then.”

“How come you always get to be right about everything?” complained Asriel as he dragged out the stepping stool so Chara could reach the counter. It was infuriating that he was taller than they were. And when Chara was two and a half months older, too! They seethed at the injustice of it all.

“I’ll leave you to think about that.” With reluctance, Chara stepped onto the stool. “What pie do you think we should make?”

“Well, I like snail, and you like chocolate pudding pie, but Dad likes butterscotch pie the best, and it’s _his_ birthday, so I think we should make that.” 

“That’s true.” Chara took to leafing through the cookbook, searching for the butterscotch pie recipe. “How _old_ is Papa, anyway?”

Asriel shrugged.

At last Chara found Mamma’s recipe for butterscotch pie, and the two children hunkered around the cookbook, elbowing each other for a better view.

Chara had never cooked or baked by themself before, but they’d helped Mamma enough to know that baking in particular called for a lot of precision. Before baking, Mamma always measured out all of the ingredients beforehand and laid them out in little dishes and ramequins along the counter, and if something had to stay cold, like milk, she’d measure it out and then put it back in the icebox.

Thankfully, Mamma’s recipes were all written in neat, organised, and easy-to-follow steps, so the chances of making a disaster out of the pie were slim. It was a relief, because as excited as they were to make a surprise for Papa, Chara was well aware that the surprise came with high stakes.

Failure was not an option.

Chara got to work at measuring out all the ingredients for the pie, both the butterscotch pudding and the crust, because of course the crust had to be made from scratch. Mamma’s pie crust was wonderfully flaky and carried a hint of salt that was supposed to be the secret ingredient. As Chara carefully measured out cups of milk and teaspoons of vanilla essence, they made Asriel clean the ash out of the firebox. 

Chara travelled back and forth across the kitchen, and climbed up onto the counter to reach the high-up shelf where Mamma stored her best stoneware pie plates, constantly consulting the recipe book to make sure all the ingredients were measured perfectly, right down to eighths of teaspoons. But as they reached the end of the ingredients list, they came across a problem.

“Asriel, come over here. What do you make of this?”

“1/2 Cups of butter,” Asriel read slowly, squinting down at their mother’s loopy text. He looked up with a frown. “That doesn’t even make any sense! Butter comes in these giant sticks! Like how she puts for the crust. How do you think we’re supposed to measure cups of it?”

Chara gently pried the book out of their brother’s hands. “Yes,” they said. “It is very strange. I thought liquids and sometimes powders were the sorts of things measured in cups.”

The children took some more time to frown down at the recipe book.

“Maybe it doesn’t say _cups_ ,” Asriel tried. “Mom’s handwriting is really hard to read.”

“Like yours is any better,” Chara couldn’t resist sniping. “Anyway, of course it says _cups_ , don’t be an idiot. Look, the letters look the same when she refers to cups of flour and cups of cream up here, don’t you see?” And pointed.

“Oh, yeah.” Asriel wrinkled up his snout in thought, one of his eyes crinkling a little. Then his eyes became very wide as he perked up, a grin lighting his features. “Ooh! I know! Maybe it’s just old-fashioned talking. Like when witches in stories make potions with ‘eye of toad’ and stuff like that. You talk like that, too, sometimes.”

“I’m not a witch, thank you.” Chara frowned. “But you might be right. It would explain a lot; Mamma is very old. I wonder what cups of butter are meant—” Then it hit them, and it hit Asriel too. They said it in unison: “ _Buttercups_!”

The children took off in a mad scramble out of the kitchen. Asriel elbowed his way past his sibling on his way through the doorframe, and though Asriel may have been taller, Chara was quicker. They soon passed him and shot straight across the sitting room, skidding on the braided rug and nearly falling flat onto their face. They recovered quickly though, kicking the rug back behind them, and could not conceal their smug grin as they heard the yelp of alarm followed by a thud that meant Asriel had tripped.

Then it was across the entrance hall and down the stairs to the basement. Chara took them three at a time, and cleared the second flight of stairs in a single leap. But Asriel gaining on them.

Chara made good time until the throne room, when Asriel _pounced._ He tackled Chara from behind and they managed to shake him off, but not before he had succeeded in knocking them down. Within seconds, they lunged at him and grabbed his ear, and he pulled at their tangled, shoulder-length hair, and they rolled around the garden, grabbing and growling. At one point Chara managed to bite the end of Asriel’s ear and he howled and let go. The children rolled away from each other until they lay panting and sprawled on their backs, limbs spread wide.

They were rough-and-tumble children, all scuffed elbows and knees, that was what Mamma said. Wild things, children carved right out of the earth. She always said it with her hands on her hips and a shake of her head, but she said it with a laugh, too, which was how Chara knew she meant it kindly.

A fond shake of the head was how Papa had explained it to them, a long time ago, before Chara understood very much about the Dreemurrs. They’d still been calling him _Mr Dreemurr_ back then—he had steadfastly objected to _Your Majesty_. “You and your brother exhaust her at times, but she loves you for it. Do you understand?”

Chara had thought about it, crinkling their nose. “I think so,” they had said, after a great pause. “A part of me thinks it very strange, but another part of me, not so much. It is like…like how I love Asriel even though he’s an idiot.”

Asriel, playing with his toy horses across the room, let out a squawk of protest, but Papa let out a great and hearty laugh, and only then had Chara realised they’d spoken out loud. They had no right to love Asriel, or his parents either. They had felt their cheeks go pink, staring hard at the floor and pressing their lips tightly together.

But when they’d dared to peer back up, they’d found Papa’s brown eyes shining, and a small smile on his face. A fond smile.

All that seemed a long time ago now, as Chara lay on their back among the flower beds in the throne room without a care in the world. They were trying to recover their breath, but Asriel kept laughing, which made them laugh, which made Asriel laugh more, and so on. Two years in the Underground and perplexingly, it felt like a place they could call home.

Still. It payed to be cautious.

Chara rolled over onto their front and pushed themself up onto their elbows. “Well, no time to lose, Asriel, let’s pick these flowers.”

“Oh, right.” Asriel mimicked Chara’s pose. “How many do we need again?”

“It said half a flower,” Chara said, frowning. “But I should think that that would not be enough.”

“Yeah…. ” Asriel rolled over again and then sat up, assuming a cross legged position among the flowers. He twisted the leaf of a tulip between his fingers before he leapt to his feet so suddenly that even Chara was startled. “Ooh! I know! Maybe it said _twelve_ flowers and there was just a mark on the paper or something like that!”

“Maybe… ”

“That must be it. Come on, Chara, let’s go count out the flowers!” Asriel bounded over to the bed of buttercups on the other side of the throne room.

Chara sighed but got up and followed, annoyed that it made sense. “Fine. I am sure it will take all our collected efforts to count out twelve buttercups. Just the petals, I presume.”

Asriel grinned at them, showing his fangs. “Hey, Chara. That was pretty smart of me, huh?”

“No.”

They both knelt among the buttercups, and began the process of carefully picking them without damaging the roots. They’d remove the petals from the stems later; it wouldn’t make much sense to cook the stems into butterscotch, and there weren’t any green bits anyway.

They were lovely flowers, Chara always thought, almost exactly like the golden flowers that grew in the square of their old village. Those flowers had been the only thing Chara had liked about that village. Not a bad substitute.

Asriel suggested that they split their load of the buttercups evenly as they carried them back to the kitchen. A pointless idea really—there were only twelve buttercups in all, it wasn’t as if they _weighed_ anything—but Asriel could be so insistent about things that Chara just agreed.

“Chara? Asriel?”

Both children went ramrod straight and froze on the spot, and Asriel stuffed the flowers up the front of his sweater. Chara, who was wearing overalls, was forced to resort to shoving their hands behind their back. They both put on their most innocent smiles as Papa rounded the corner, wearing his gardening gear.

Papa took in the sight of them, a smile spreading across his face. “And what sort of mischief are my two little rascals getting up to today?”

“Nothing!” they chorused immediately, trying to stand up even straighter.

Papa raised one eyebrow and smiled wider, his eyes crinkling. “Nothing at all? Just standing inconspicuously in the hall outside the throne room, doing nothing in particular, and hiding nothing in particular behind your backs?”

“Exactly so,” Chara said, shifting their feet and trying to look more innocent.

“Well, I hid mine—” Asriel began, but Chara elbowed him.

“Well.” Papa reached out one massive paw to ruffle the tops of their heads. “I will leave you to it, then.”

“Please,” said Chara, sliding out from under his paw, and Papa just chuckled before giving Asriel one last scuff of the head and lumbering on into the throne room. The moment he was gone, both children let out sighs of relief.

They were much more careful making their way back to the kitchen. They couldn’t be caught with the flowers or the surprise would be ruined. Chara was worried they’d run into Mamma or one of the pages on duty, but there was no-one.

The children dropped the flowers on the counter and carefully removed the petals from the stems, one by one, without crushing them.

Now there was only one thing left to do: make the pie.

They began with the pie crust. It was a delicate process, for the butter had to be cold and cut into little cubes fresh out of the icebox, and they needed to be quick at working the dough before it melted. The entire time they were kneading the dough and rolling it out, Chara could feel their heart pounding because perfect, perfect, it had to be perfect. But by the time the crust had been laid out over the pie plate, and placed carefully back in the icebox to stay cool, Chara could not help but feel just a little bit proud of themself. It looked and felt exactly like something Mamma might have made, and when they shared the scraps of leftover dough with Asriel, it tasted right, too.

Maybe they could do this.

But then came the butterscotch mixture, and that was when they ran into problems.

The first instruction was to melt the flowers, and Chara couldn’t begin to guess how that might be accomplished. Did flowers _melt_? They had no idea. They dropped the petals into the saucepan and prodded at them with a wooden spoon, but they only began to turn brown and wither into themselves.

But then again, butterscotch always had a sort of golden brownish colour. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. It was the end result that really mattered, even if the journey there was difficult.

They added the sugar. The sugar scorched slightly and it stuck to the bottom of the pan, but things began to look a little better once they poured in the cream. Clumps of sugar floated to the surface of the cream, but at least they weren’t attaching themselves to the bottom of the pan anymore.

By the time Chara added the vanilla and the pinch of salt—the salt was important, they knew—and poured the mixture into the pie plate, the butterscotch came out far too wet. It didn’t smell right, either, they noted as they pushed the pie plate into the oven.

Chara slid down and knelt next to the oven. Wood ovens like Mamma’s were tricky business, they knew. They’d have to maintain a watchful eye over the pie the entire time it was baking, that was important. Otherwise it would burn, and then it would be ruined.

They were staring so hard at the oven door that they didn’t notice Asriel settling down next to them. Cross-legged. “Hey, Chara? Are you okay? You have that look on your face.”

They gritted their teeth and pointedly turned their head away. “What face. I haven’t got a face.”

Even though they weren’t looking at him, Chara knew Asriel’s snout was wrinkling in confusion. He was always so painfully expressive. “Yeah, you do so. Everyone has a face.”

“The Moldsmals don’t. People who have had their faces eaten by demons don’t.”

“Oh- _kay_ , but you’re not a Moldsmal. And I don’t think a demon ate your face in the last minute or else I would’ve noticed!”

“Ah, yes. You always were observant.”

“Well, I think I am, kind of! Observant! Mom says that! That’s how come I was observant you had that look on your face you get when—”

“Do you think the pie will come out properly? The butterscotch was entirely too wet, not at all like butterscotch, and it smelled strange too.”

Asriel scooted closer to the stove and sniffed exaggeratedly. “That’s probably just because it didn’t go in the oven yet! I mean, we followed Mom’s instructions and everything.”

Chara bit their lip and shifted on the floor so they hugged their knees to their chest. “That’s true… ”

Asriel beamed at them. “Yeah! Even if it’s not perfect, I think it’s gonna be really good!”

Chara dug their nails into their knees, still not looking at him and trying not to unleash their frustration because he just didn’t _understand_. How could he possibly? He wasn’t like Chara. It wasn’t his fault, but he simply couldn’t understand.

Asriel was still talking, laughing. “…imagine if it caught on fire and then the whole thing blew up, like _floom_!” He gestured with his hands. “Wouldn’t that be so funny?”

“No, it would not,” Chara said tightly.

“Oh.” Asriel went quiet, his floppy ears drooping. “Or, ooh! What if—”

“Shut up,” Chara snapped, and Asriel was so surprised he jerked backwards and nearly tipped over. Chara felt a flash of irritation—he was so dramatic about everything and he didn’t even do it on _purpose_ —but then the guilt kicked in. “I’m sorry,” they said, slow and deliberate. “But all this talk of different ways the pie might be ruined is… I just don’t want it to be ruined. I want it to be—I want Papa to like his surprise.”

Asriel stayed quiet for another moment, looking almost comically serious as he mulled his sibling’s words over, and it was just the sound of the logs popping in the firebox. Then he scooted closer to Chara, until he could lean his head on their shoulder. “He’s still gonna like it even if it’s not perfect. Promise! You know that. You know him.” He paused. “And I know that’s what you’re scared of, but he’s still gonna love us, and Mom will, too. Both of us.”

And he was just there, leaning against their shoulder in _sympathy_ and _reassurance_ , and the worst part was that Chara knew he was right. Mamma and Papa loved Asriel. He was their son and their blood, though Chara knew those sorts of things didn’t really determine love.

But they loved Chara too: they were their child even if they were not their blood. Mamma and Papa had loved them from the start, which had been stupid because they hadn’t even know what they were like back then.

Chara had dropped plates and smashed a favourite vase (by accident the first time, but later on purpose, as a test). They had stolen food from the cupboards and hidden it under their bed and eaten it in the night; and they still broke into Mamma’s chocolate stash. They tracked mud in the house and they were rude to the Royal Scientist and they called Asriel names and one time they had dislocated his elbow (though the time with the elbow had been an accident). It had been two years, and by now Chara had come to understand that Mamma and Papa still loved them, which was stupid because by now they knew that Chara was wicked and ruined everything they touched.

But Mamma and Papa loved them, and Chara was wicked to accept it.

Asriel loved them too, but Asriel was like that. Also stupid.

“I know that,” Chara mumbled, before Asriel could get too pushy. The fabric of their overalls was too thick, so they dug their nails into their wrist instead. They never did it enough to break the skin, and definitely never enough to draw blood. Just enough to leave tiny red crescent moon imprints that would fade away in a few minutes. Then, in an even quieter voice, “But I have to deserve it.”

They didn’t know why they’d said it out loud—it wasn’t like they wanted to share it with their brother. But Asriel lifted his head from their shoulder and nodded. “Good,” he said, and Chara let out a private sigh of relief, because now they knew for certain that he hadn’t heard them.

Still, it was a good distraction when Asriel perked up with a cry of “Hey! I can already smell the pie!”

He was right, Chara realised, it _was_ beginning to smell. The scent of buttery crust was emanating powerfully from the oven, and it smelled… wonderful. It smelled just as wonderful as when Mamma was baking. Most importantly, though, it smelled _right_. They and Asriel must have done it _right_.

“It smells _good_ ,” Asriel said with longing, stating the obvious as ever.

“Yes,” said Chara, looking at him pointedly even though their own mouth was watering, too. “But you must remember we cannot eat this one. It’s for Papa.”

“Yeah, I know… but we can make another one sometime, maybe!”

The children scooted closer to the oven—Mamma would have chided them if she were here. “It really does smell good,” Chara allowed, and they couldn’t help but grin widely, teeth showing. Mamma and Papa _would_ be proud. They still wouldn’t deserve any of it. One successful pie didn’t outweigh all the bad things they’d done, but… maybe they wouldn’t worry about that until later. At least it was better than being loved for a ruined pie. “Perhaps we _should_ try again.”

“See, I told you it’d be good!”

“We shall have to make a chocolate pudding pie next,” they grinned.

“Nooo,” Asriel leaned back, tugging on his toes, and fell onto his back. He lay there, on the floor, laughing. “We should make snail pie!”

Chara made a pointed gagging noise. “Absolutely not. You know how I despise snails, and that most definitely _includes_ snail pie.” They gave a little shudder for full effect.

Their brother flopped his limbs about. “Well… _I_ like snail pie. It’s my favourite, and it’s Mom’s favourite, and Dad likes it a lot too, so you’re outvoted, ha!”

“I’d sooner die.”

“Nuh-uh. I win!”

“ _Oh_.” Chara’s grin turned sly. “Oh, it’s a matter of _winning_ and _losing,_ is it?” They leapt to their feet, pointing an imaginary sword at Asriel’s throat. “Then perhaps we shall come to an agreement in battle, foul brigand!” They didn’t know what a brigand was, but it probably had something to do with actually liking snail pie.

“Very well.” Asriel did his best impression of a deep, rumbling, knightly sort of voice. “But you may come to regret it when you, um, you find your skills…. when you find your skill with a blade is, uh, unmatched to that of your opponent, you fiend.”

“Ah! So you’re a novice, then? I’m afraid it is too late. You have already agreed to fight me, brigand, and you shall soon discover that I will not go easy on you.”

The children took off to fetch their wooden swords from their bedroom. Chara wished they could have played with real blades, or even just fought with knives, but they knew Mamma would never allow it. Mamma never even let them cut up their food with the sharpest knives. Still, the wooden swords were sturdy and light, and they made for excellent fights.

It took a good deal of self-discipline to wait until they were out in the yard to begin their fight, but they weren’t allowed to play with their swords in the house, and that was a rule Mamma was so adamant about that Chara never even tried to bargain with her.

But that didn’t matter once they were in the courtyard. They bowed to each other before the fight—just because they were disgraced knights didn’t mean they had to behave like highwaymen and do away with chivalry—but soon the yard was filled with the sounds of laughter, and wooden swords clanking against each other, and Asriel’s ridiculous cries of “hi-yah!” every time he swung his weapon.

It was a long and tiring battle, for they had once been the highest-ranking knights in each of their respective kingdoms, but neither Chara nor Asriel gave up.

The battle went on so long, in fact, that the pie, forgotten in the oven, began to burn. Neither child noticed the smell, but their mother did, and Toriel rushed into the kitchen, carefully removing the pie from the oven and putting out the fire. The crust was charred, if only a little bit, and if the butterscotch filling smelled strange, and was of a decidedly un-butterscotch-like consistency, well, her children didn’t need to know that. She watched them, smiling. And when Chara finally defeated the knight Asriel by driving their blade into his treacherous, snail-loving heart and noticed the slightly burnt, suspiciously wet pie cooling on the window sill, they were so enraptured by their victory and the thrill of battle that had preceded it, they didn’t even care.


End file.
